Introduction: an overview of the acquisition of reference

Language is a social tool that allows us to speak to others about the world. In doing so we need words that pick out those entities that we want to talk about. Linguistic expressions that identify such entities are known as referential or referring expressions, including proper names (Laura), natural kind terms (water, gold, tiger), indexicals (you, I, she), and definite descriptions (the dog, the smallest positive number). The mechanisms of reference have been the subject of intense speculation, and the debate over descriptive (Frege 1892/1948; Searle, 1958) vs. causal (Kripke, 1972/1980) or hybrid theories of reference (Evans, 1973) is still rife in the semantics literature (Genone & Lombrozo, 2012; Lam, 2010; Martí, 2014). Whatever the theoretical approach to reference, from a developmental perspective the three key questions are the following: What is the trajectory of language learners’ comprehension and production of referential expressions? To what extent, and in which contexts, do children abide by the same linguistic constraints as adults in their referential choices? How do cross-linguistic differences shape the process of referential choice acquisition

Tracking Linguistic Primitives: The Phonosemantic Realization of Fundamental Oppositional Pairs

This thesis investigates how cross-linguistic phoneme distributions of 56 fundamental oppositional concepts can reveal semantic relationships by looking into the linguistic forms of 75 genetically and areally distributed languages. Based on proposals of semantic primes (Goddard 2002), reduced Swadesh lists (Holman et al. 2008), presumed ultraconservative words (Pagel et.al. 2013), attested basic antonyms (Paradis, Willners & Jones 2009) and sense perception words, a number of semantic oppositional pairs were selected. Five different types of sound groupings were used dividing phonemes according to; the frequency of vowels' second formant and consonants' energy accumulation (Frequency), sonority (Sonority), a combination of the aformentioned two (Combination), general phonetic traits, e.g. voicing (General), and lastly incorporating all traits of the four presented groupings (All). These were analyzed by means of cluster analyses creating biplots, illustrating the phonological relatedness between the investigated concepts. Also, the phoneme distributions' over- and underrepresentation from the average was calculated defining which sounds represented and were lacking for each concept. Significant semantic groupings and relations based solely on phonological contrasts were found for most investigated concepts, including the semantic domains; Small, Intense Vision-Touch, Large, Organic, Horizontal-Vertical Distance, Deictic, Containment, Gender, Parent and Diurnal, and the sole concept OLD. The most notable relations found were; MOTHER/I vs. FATHER, a three-way deictic distinction between I, indicatory deictic concepts and THERE, and a dimensional tripartite oppositional relationship between Small and (possibly with Intense Vision-Touch), Large-Organic and Horizontal-Vertical Distance. Embodiment, benefits of oppositional thinking and evidence for more general concepts to precede complex concepts were proposed as explanations for the results

The effect of perceptual availability and prior discourse on young children's use of referring expressions.

Choosing appropriate referring expressions requires assessing whether a referent is “available” to the addressee either perceptually or through discourse. In Study 1, we found that 3- and 4-year-olds, but not 2-year-olds, chose different referring expressions (noun vs. pronoun) depending on whether their addressee could see the intended referent or not. In Study 2, in more neutral discourse contexts than previous studies, we found that 3- and 4-year-olds clearly differed in their use of referring expressions according to whether their addressee had already mentioned a referent. Moreover, 2-yearolds responded with more naming constructions when the referent had not been mentioned previously. This suggests that, despite early social–cognitive developments, (a) it takes time tomaster the given/new contrast linguistically, and (b) children understand the contrast earlier based on discourse, rather than perceptual context

Directional adposition use in English, Swedish and Finnish

Directional adpositions such as to the left of describe where a Figure is in relation to a Ground. English and Swedish directional adpositions refer to the location of a Figure in relation to a Ground, whether both are static or in motion. In contrast, the Finnish directional adpositions edellä (in front of) and jäljessä (behind) solely describe the location of a moving Figure in relation to a moving Ground (Nikanne, 2003). When using directional adpositions, a frame of reference must be assumed for interpreting the meaning of directional adpositions. For example, the meaning of to the left of in English can be based on a relative (speaker or listener based) reference frame or an intrinsic (object based) reference frame (Levinson, 1996). When a Figure and a Ground are both in motion, it is possible for a Figure to be described as being behind or in front of the Ground, even if neither have intrinsic features. As shown by Walker (in preparation), there are good reasons to assume that in the latter case a motion based reference frame is involved. This means that if Finnish speakers would use edellä (in front of) and jäljessä (behind) more frequently in situations where both the Figure and Ground are in motion, a difference in reference frame use between Finnish on one hand and English and Swedish on the other could be expected. We asked native English, Swedish and Finnish speakers’ to select adpositions from a language specific list to describe the location of a Figure relative to a Ground when both were shown to be moving on a computer screen. We were interested in any differences between Finnish, English and Swedish speakers. All languages showed a predominant use of directional spatial adpositions referring to the lexical concepts TO THE LEFT OF, TO THE RIGHT OF, ABOVE and BELOW. There were no differences between the languages in directional adpositions use or reference frame use, including reference frame use based on motion. We conclude that despite differences in the grammars of the languages involved, and potential differences in reference frame system use, the three languages investigated encode Figure location in relation to Ground location in a similar way when both are in motion. Levinson, S. C. (1996). Frames of reference and Molyneux’s question: Crosslingiuistic evidence. In P. Bloom, M.A. Peterson, L. Nadel & M.F. Garrett (Eds.) Language and Space (pp.109-170). Massachusetts: MIT Press. Nikanne, U. (2003). How Finnish postpositions see the axis system. In E. van der Zee & J. Slack (Eds.), Representing direction in language and space. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press. Walker, C. (in preparation). Motion encoding in language, the use of spatial locatives in a motion context. Unpublished doctoral dissertation, University of Lincoln, Lincoln. United Kingdo

The interactional achievement of familyhood in Vietnamese-Taiwanese international families

Phd ThesisWhile so many studies relating to Vietnamese female spouses in Taiwan have tapped into crucial issues facilitating understanding of this particular social group, none of them deals with face-to-face interaction between Vietnamese female spouses and their Taiwanese family members. This thesis thus tries to bridge the research gap by studying real-life face-to-face interaction in such transnational families with special attention to identifying the interactional relevance and consequentiality of membership categories invoked by the family members and how Taiwanese and Mandarin are used as interactional resources in familial discourse. This study engaged 3 Vietnamese wives in Taiwan along with 14 Taiwanese family members whose mealtime talks were audio-/video‐recorded. Conversation analysis (CA) and membership categorisation analysis (MCA) were adopted to analyse the 7 hours of data collected. It was found (from the corpus of recordings) that a Vietnamese spouse’s deployment of the membership categories ‘Taiwanese’ and ‘Vietnamese’ relates to her use of first-person plural pronouns to form the (literally translated) ‘we + country’ compound. The compound is found to be a distinctive identity-related device used by the Vietnamese participants to engage in self-categorisation. Moreover, it is also an epistemics-related device used by the Vietanamese spouses to ascribe authority or expertise to themselves or their Taiwanese family members in the enactment of 'Vietnamese' or 'Taiwanese'. On the other hand, it was found that the Vietnamese participants orient to Taiwanese and Mandarin as salient resources in admonishment sequences. Specifically, the two languages serve as contextualisation cues and framing devices in 3 different types of admonishment sequences. It is identified that familyhood can be achieved in an admonishment context, in which language varieties are used by adult family members to facilitate their alignment with each other in educating the youngest generation. The research findings suggest that the Vietnamese female spouses can fabricate interactional resources into devices to actively engage in familial communicative events and fulfil their responsibilities as a family member and as a mother. From the discursive construction of national and household identity categories, the Vietnamese spouses have demonstrated how they manage identity work and position themselves in the family; on the other hand, the way that participants negotiate national identities in family discourse have made salient the transnationality pertaining to the families. The study therefore contributes to enriching the understanding of Vietnamese female spouses in Taiwan from a conversation and membership categorisation analytic perspective, and the research findings serve as a reference point for research on cross-border marriage, cross-border couples and interactional patterns in transnational families

PASSIVE ACQUISITION OF PRESCHOOL CHILDREN IN SUNDANESE LANGUAGE

In linguistic and acquisition theory, passive is a complex structure which is notacquired in child language. This construction is a late acquisition for about fourthage in English, the age of fifth in German and eighth in Hebrew. In Sundaneselanguage as one of language in Indonesia, passive structure was acquired and usedproductively earlier in an almost perfect construction of the age of three. Data inthis research showed that the child of 3,1 years old; 4,1 years old; 4,7 years old;and 5,0 years old which are used Sundanese language as their first language, canproduce passive constructions of the simple to the complex ones although there arestill many errors in the order of the constructions. Through analysis of 75 passivesentence as the data, this research described for three points in the statement ofresearch. Those are what the semantic roles which are include in the passiveconstruction are, how the stages of the passive production of the partisipants are,and what the similarities and differences between boys and girls in the productivityof passive constructions are. The result of reasearch showed that children acquiredpassive construction from the simple one based on the structure and meaning tothe more complex one. The stages are from the use of first passive’s first class inSundanese grammar of Coolsma (1985). For the similarities and differencesbetween boys and girls are that all children took the same stages of the passiveproduction either in semantic roles or verb class of passive but the girls tend to bemore verbalistic than boys. This was showed by the number of data and theaccuracy of their constructions. Boys are tend to say by the simple construction andusing the gesture. .Keywords: Passive structure, Sundanese Language, Semantic Role, the Stages of Language Acquisitio